Oh Dublin… I may have been wrong about you….

I was hating on you for a while. I really was. Somewhere within all my grumpy dislike for you, I wanted to like you, but I couldn’t find a reason. Then, I went to this party… and there was this woman… and a conversation… and now my heads all spinny and getting Dublin (and her and our conversation) out of my head has been difficult. So, let me tell you the story…

Friday, my last day in Dublin, I actually hopped in to go visit the local work office and talk to the locals. It was typical work and I headed on out of there, planning to go to the one thing that night I thought that I *might* have fun at. The local anarchist space was having a queer zombie dance party. Like, ok, right there, you’ve pretty much hit the head on what can drag me out of my shell to go socialize. Zombies? Queer? Anarchist? I’m there. You could call it an anarchist queer zombie root canal and I would be the first in line.

And I pretty much was. Like, suuuuper early. Oh, crap, I forgot. Queer standard time. People show up 2 hours after things start. Oh well, I’ll be social, drink tea, smoke, and chat. And I did just that, which I’m pretty proud of myself for doing. A lot of times, I’ll find a corner and read, just to be around people, without having to have too much interaction.

A few hours in, I’m hanging out when in walks…

ok, let me back up here. I apparently have a “type”. My adopted family and I have discussed how I really do have a type and it’s not like this standard, boring, “type”. It’s very specific and I don’t even try to make excuses for it. It just is what it is. And no, I’ll not be describing my type, because it’s really not a hard and fast type, it’s more a tendancy…. anyhow…

In walks my type. But, zombiefied. I, being the sauve bitch I am, immediately run outside to smoke and get as faaaar away as possible. Yeah, that’s how I roll! I run away. Introverts FTW!

I spend the night avoiding her, because well, it’s my last night. What’s the point, right? I can just convince myself that she’s vapid and I would hate her if I talked to her, because, hellllo, airplane, 12 hours?

I’m hanging out with someone, smoking cigarettes. Everyone is fascinated by my pre-rolled American Spirits. I end up chatting with this woman I lent my lucky 2 dollar bill to, when who walks up? The cute zombie woman. Oh. yeah, of course they’d know each other…. Ok, Beth, don’t panic. Remember. Vapid. She’d probably not going to be someone you’d be interested in. And then the worst thing that could possibly happen, happened.

She started talking with me.

I’m not a shallow critter. I don’t care if I find you attractive. If you can’t hold my interest (which most people can’t), pft, not interested, even remotely. We started chatting politics, specifically the diaspora. We talked about cultural trauma, plastic paddyism, RD Laing…. She explained “the Gathering” which I’m still 20 shades of “eww” over (I have a lot of thoughts on this, but nothing coherent yet). We talked about language. We talked about food politics. I think I stunned a few folks in that I had more irish language competency than they would have expected an american to have. We started talking irish politics. Ok, ok, now I’m kinda interested. And then, like, the most awful thing happened ever….

We started talking early irish law.

Those of you who know me well, in real life, know, that all you have to do is start discussing early irish legal structures and, hell, you could be the corpse of Richard Nixon and I’d sit there starry eyed. It’s intellectual foreplay for me. (I’ve been looking for an original copy of Corpus Iuris Hibernici for YEARS.) And here is this… this… zombified, adorable woman, talking about one of the few subjects I rarely get the chance to dork out on (believe it or not, I don’t have a lot of chances to discuss early irish laws surrounding property rights during a divorce with beautiful women… I know, surprise, right?).

I stuck around for the rest of the night, just so I could listen to her, just so I could hear every single damn word out of her mouth, just so I could drink the last few hours of Dublin in and maybe have it make up for the past few days. I ended up getting back to my hotel at 4:30 in the morning, barely awake, hopping a flight, getting to my airbnb place and sleeping 13 hours the next day. I still don’t know if she was single, or queer, or interested and not a damn bit of me cares. For a whole of 5 hours, I got to listen to someone I found insanely attractive make my brain light up with talk of early irish caste systems.

So, Dublin. I’m still not sure what to make of you. You’re kind of like that ex of mine who I thought I hated but I ended up adoring. I’m willing to give you another try. Especially if I get to hang out with her again.